Did you ever watch Pet Sematary, Stephen King’s story about a burial ground that brings the dead back to life, but different? Do you recall the creepy scene where the Dad is considering burying his dead child in the sematary to resurrect him, only to be warned that “sometimes dead is better?”
I was thinking about that scene while watching the newly resurrected season of Law & Order.
Dun- DUN!
In case you have been in a 32 year coma or your cave didn’t get basic cable, Law & Order is the classic crime show that spends the first half with detectives solving a crime and the second half with the DAs prosecuting them. Debuting in 1990, the show was a major change from the crime shows of the eighties - shows like Hill Street Blues and Cagney and Lacey - that were as much about the private lives and struggles of police officers as they were about catching criminals. L&O was all business, a throwback to the “just the facts” days of Dragnet. They only hinted at the detectives’ off-screen lives, usually by Lenny Briscoe making a joke about his many ex-wives. My Dad loved it and got me hooked on it as well. I would watch marathons all afternoon on A&E on my 13” TV when I first moved to New York back in the 90s and was only working nights. I’m such a fan I even wrote a scene into my book where Law & Order is Orson the bulldog’s favorite show. (Lenny Briscoe is his favorite, too.)
The secret to the show’s success was the formula. Every fan of the show can give you a rundown of a generic plot. In the opening scene, a couple random New Yorkers are chatting about their jobs or girlfriends and they trip over a dead body. The detectives are called, the legendary Jerry Orbach makes a qup or two, and they follow the bread crumbs until they arrest a suspect, usually after they question a Guy Stacking Boxes and the Bartender Who Remembers Every Customer.
The formula was soothing. The formula was relaxing. You could leave L&O on for a marathon and not worry if you missed a scene or zoned out while folding laundry, because the plots (with a few exceptions) were pretty much on rails. There is comfort in the familiar. This is why there are thousands of McDonald’s restaurants. Characters could be swapped out for younger, hotter, and cheaper actors without upsetting the flow. The show ended after 20 seasons, and probably could have kept going if not for producer Dick Wolf and NBC fighting over the budgets. Still, it was survived by numerous spin offs - SVU, Criminal Intent, Conviction, Organized Crime, Trial by Jury, etc. And Dick Wolf is still cranking out procedural shows (“Chicago Water Gas Electric” is sure to be on your TV soon.)
In an age where every beloved (or at least somewhat well known) show is getting a reboot and television is desperate to fight declining ratings, bringing back a show that spawned over a thousand hours of television must’ve seemed like a no-brainer.
Unfortunately, just like poor Timmy Baterman, it came back with no brain. Sometimes dead is better…
Where to begin? Everything is just…off. The writing, the performances, the rhythms, everything is just not there. Like a beloved pet come back from the dead, it doesn’t move right, look right, or act right.
The cast was always a strength. Irascible, sarcastic Lenny Briscoe, Jesse Martin as the suave Detective Green, Angie Harmon’s tough ADA. All great characters, Who is going to fill those shoes and power suits? Jeffery Donovan, who I loved on Burn Notice, now plays a detective whose only personality traits are belligerent and angry. He is a dull, grumbly addition to the detective pairing, and has zero chemistry with Anthony Andersen, who has returned from the final season in 2010. Camryn Manheim, usually very good in everything, is playing the lieutenant and is just playing her as perpetually annoyed, This is in stark contrast to the great S. Epatha Merkerson, who brought a world of personality to the part. Hugh Dancy, fantastic in the Hannibal tv series, plays the lead ADA and he’s just so milquetoast here. There is none of the fire that McCoy had, none. I can’t for one second picture him trying out any of McCoy’s theatrics. Sam Waterson has returned to play DA McCoy, and frankly he looks too frail. I worry that a stiff breeze will knock him over. And there is Dancy’s second chair, who has thus far been given absolutely nothing to do. No one has any zest or chemistry, no one has any good one liners, it just lies there, leaden.
One thing the show would have to handle is the shift in public opinion towards the police. In the wake of the massive Black Lives Matter protests of 2020 that were spurred by police violence and brutality, a show where the cops intimidate suspects into confessing and DAs bend the rules to get convictions isn’t great. I still love the old shows, but I admit that when the detectives are grilling someone in the box I keep shouting “don’t say anything! Ask for your lawyer!” at the screen. McCoy is forever threatening reluctant witnesses with deportation and arrest, cops are always making prison rape jokes to scare suspects. That stuff just won’t fly anymore and needs to be dealt with.
Now there are about a hundred ways L&O could have addressed this. Cast a brash young detective of color who clashes with an old school partner. Have a young ADA who wants to go after bad cops, but then the DA office gets stonewalled by the PBA and then McCoy has to come in and sort it out.
So how does L&O address this change in attitude? By not addressing it. At all. Except to have McCoy whine about “they tried to defund the police” and have Donovan threaten someone who’s recording him on a cell phone and grumble about “these kids today, they got no respect.” And, come on. For a show that would always tout cases “ripped from the headlines,” how can you ignore the dominant story of policing over the last two years?
Oh and the plots… Everything is a “ripped from the headlines” show now. In the episodes I’ve watched, they’ve done Bill Cosby getting out of jail, Theranos, Brittany Spears conservatorship, Naomi Osaka, and QAnon. Can’t we just have a simple crime of passion or the obvious Kennedy family stand in trying to cover up a crime their crazy son committed? It doesn’t help that their takes on these headlines are just the laziest ones imaginable. (“Sure, the Cosby stand-in deserved to get shot, but this is a society!”) And there are no twists! The old show would often catch the wrong guy at first and then have to go back and reinvestigate, or the judge would toss out key evidence while McCoy fumed. Not here! These have all been “security camera footage shows this guy doing it, Let’s go get him.” And they get him. Just so dull.
It’s not good. In fact, it’s pretty bad. For such a timeless formula, it’s kind of impressive how badly this has been botched.
How to fix it? The writers should sit down and binge watch a few of the Jerry Orbach seasons, like the rest of us do on a rainy Saturday afternoon. Re-learn the beats and the rhythms. Re-cast the detective parts, or at least make Donovan and Andersen spend a weekend together locked in a cabin so it doesn’t look like they met for the first time ten seconds before the cameras roll. And if you can’t figure this out, well then put it back in the ground. I’d rather have the memory of the old episodes and enjoy the endless reruns than watch this shambling mess.
Sometimes dead is better.
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